LETTERS

"No Gain"

To THE EDITOR:

By now I hope you have received a deluge of mail congratulating the ALUMNI MAG on its 50th year, and protesting the new cover. My wife and I both agree that the previous cover was (1) more Dartmouthy, (2) greener, (3) better artistically.

Why the change? Merely for the sake of change? I don't think it's a gain at all.

New Haven, Conn.

Old Guard Thoughts

To THE EDITOR:

Do you think it is too early to talk about making plans for consulting with the U. S. Post Office Department in regard to a 200th Anniversary postage stamp? As long as Princeton had Nassau Hall on a horizontal stamp, do you think a vertical stamp showing the tower of Baker Library would do the trick?

Another thought has come to me. Why would it not be in keeping with the occasion to invite the Yale football team to Hanover for the 200th anniversary game in 1969? [Eleazar Wheelock was a graduate of Yale.] If not possible, then swap dates with Princeton, but it would not have the same significance.

Please excuse my wandering thoughts, but for us members of the Old Guard one of our main hopes is to live long enough to attend, or at least read about, the wonderful events that will be happening in Hanover ten years hence.

Whittier, Calif.

" Un-Dartmouth"

To THE EDITOR:

When one is as grateful to and fond of his college as I am of Dartmouth, it is hard to be critical. Actually, I think, it is not the College but the professional fund-raisers behind the 200th Anniversary Fund of whom I am critical.

My beef is the Fund publication which classifies donors into various tribes or squads according to the amounts they threw on the barrel head.

In my book this is un-democratic, unfair, un-Dartmouth.

Donors to annual Dartmouth Alumni Fund campaigns have always been listed in the MAGAZINE by name only — no mention of whether they gave $1.00 or $1,000. A chap could find his name next to Nelson Rockefeller's or Sig Larmon's and feel pretty good about it.

But now the glamor is gone. The Big Shots all belong to the Chief Wahoowah Lodge and the rest of us slobs are classified as Papooses-Not-Yet-Dried-Behind-the-Ears - or something.

Let's get back to the system where a Dartmouth man is honored for giving what he can ... and not classified down the line because he can't give the million he'd like to give.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Share Plan Explained

To THE EDITOR

Certain questions have been raised by alumni concerning the propriety of listing contributors in accordance with the Share Plan introduced as part of the Capital Gifts Campaign. This is a natural and proper question and since it has been raised by your readers there should be available to them some word of explanation.

For that purpose may I quote first of all from a letter written by Mr. Charles J. Zim-merman '23, chairman of the Trustees Committee on Development and national chairman of the campaign, to an alumnus who had raised this question with him.

"The adoption of a share plan as recommended by our professional counsel was discussed at great length by the Trustees Committee on Development, the Steering Committee of the Capital Gifts Campaign and by our own full-time staff at Dartmouth. I sat in on all of these discussions. There were mixed feelings in regard to the adoption of such a share plan. It was recognized that the adoption of such a plan might smack of pressure, and that it might give offense to some of the alumni and friends of the College.

"On the other side of the coin was an insistent and persistent demand on the part of an overwhelming majority of those soliciting funds for the College that we adopt some share plan. These solicitors pointed out to us that the inevitable question in almost every solicitation was 'How much am I expected to give and how much have others in circumstances similar to mine given?' Last spring, after a great deal of discussion and study, it was decided that the adoption of such a plan should be recommended to the Board of Trustees. It was clear that as we approached the time when the over-all solicitation of Dartmouth alumni was to take place a . share- plan of some nature was essential and that it would be welcomed by the overwhelming majority of those entrusted with making solicitations as well as those being solicited.

"The recommendation to adopt such a plan was made to the Board of Trustees of the College in June and after a thorough discussion it was approved by the Board."

In the weeks which have passed since the first publication of this listing experience has shown that the advantages which the Trustees felt would accrue to the College have been produced in abundant measure. Conversely the number of alumni concerned about this procedure have been fewer than expected.

I believe it is fair to say that neither the Trustees nor the Campaign Steering Committee were unaware of the possible disadvantages but they felt that the positive values would far outweigh such disadvantages. Our experience proves this to be abundantly true.

Director of Development

Hanover, N. H.